


Gods Like Us

by AstrophysicalBean



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Modern Gods AU, excessive philosophical pondering, i will not lie to you there will be a TON of angst, nicole is just as confused about gods as she is about demons in the show, trying to figure out what is wrong with humanity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 01:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17798942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstrophysicalBean/pseuds/AstrophysicalBean
Summary: She knew she shouldn’t—thousands of years of experience told her not to—because this woman was charming and beautiful and inviting, but beyond that she looked at Waverly like she didn’t need to see anything else, and Waverly had the sneaking suspicion she was looking back in just the same way. But alas, even gods have their flaws (even more so, all too often).Nicole held a hand out across the space between them. Waverly hesitated only a moment, ignoring billions of years of sadness etched deep into her heart, before reaching out to take the hand, squeezing warmly. She had been so, so lonely, for so, so long. What was the harm in justonebartender—in justonenight? Couldn’t gods be greedy sometimes, too? “My name is Waverly.”Or, AU in which Nicole is just a mortal woman, and the all-powerful deity sometimes known as Waverly would shatter the cosmos to keep her forever.





	1. The Big Bang

_For C, who read it first, and put up with all my drunken bullshit along the way._

_-_

“ _All we ever want to know is where the stars came from,_  
_but do we ever stop to watch them shine?_ ”

–'Ungrateful Eyes', Jon Bellion

-

In the beginning, there was a really big bang, and it was okay-ish. It wasn’t bad. It was definitely at least middling to fair. A deity who would eventually have the name Waverly would have liked the chance to sleep in a bit more, but overall it wasn’t terrible.

In the beginning, a deity (who could be said anthropomorphically to be female) watched the creation of everything. She saw light sculpted, moulded into stars that would shine across the vast expanse of space and time. She saw atoms fly across the universe to find their complementary parts, to form molecules, to form worlds, to form _life_. She saw time drip into existence, one drop of seconds after another, from the great hourglass of creation. She saw galaxies form and turn on their axes, pinwheeling across the cosmos, moving ever outward as everything expanded constantly. She saw everything, watched it with interest, as a child watches—oh, shit, does a child watch anything yet? Have children been _invented_ yet?

She blinked and watched the creation of Earth, and water, and great continents. She watched the first single-celled organism thrive, flourish in the oceans, evolving until they were much too much to be contained, and then she watched as they climbed to land, slowly, clumsily at first; but with each step toward civilization, toward growth, they became more assured. She made it so, watching with a smile on her face that hadn’t been conceived of yet. They were still amphibian, but they were so _curious_ , so full of an innate sense of adventure that she had given them. She liked watching these things grow. She liked guiding them, helping them to the next place they wanted to go.

“You give too much,” her sister (or, her kindred deity, who could also be anthropomorphically supposed to be a female, and who shared a bond with her that one could, if one was human and only understood things in terms of humanity, call familial) chided her bitterly, watching on in sorrow. It was not for any reason in particular that she watched on in sorrow, of course. It’s just that there’s no other way to look at things when you are the deified embodiment of sorrow.

“You give too little,” she replied.

“I have nothing to give that they would want,” her sister said sadly. “Regret, a longing that can never be sated—such things don’t do well with primitive beings. They don’t have the capacity to hold me in their hearts yet.”

“Not yet, no,” she agreed, “but they will.”

Her sister gave the universe’s first grim sigh. “And gods help them when they do.”

“We will,” she assured her sister, watching the things on the rock, that would soon be known as a planet that would eventually be called Earth, grow legs. “When they do, we will.”

Time rolled on, and dinosaurs became of the things, and the deity still not yet known as Waverly wept as one of her more vindictive siblings hurled a meteor down on them. Some of her siblings were neutral, some good like her, and some bad. The bad ones laughed as she mourned the death of so many living things, but from the ashes she grew new hope for this tiny rock. New things to take the place of the old, to take on their legacy, to _become_ in their stead.

Solar systems grew and shifted and died and constellations aligned and broke apart, and the deity who would (very soon!) be known as Waverly watched it all grow. She watched hairy things become curious of what might happen if they held their legs just _so_ and if they righted their spines just _thus_ and if they moved their lips to push sound out just like “ _That_.”

She gave them hope and curiosity and wonderment, and she let it be good.

-

“They don’t deserve all this,” her sister said, as they watched the hairy things play with fire for the first time, hooting into the night that had suddenly become full of blazing light. “It won’t last.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “It will all be gone in the blink of an eye for us, but it will make all the difference to them.”

“You’re too kind.”

“I didn’t think the concept of too much kindness had been invented yet. Or did I miss the last family meeting?” And in the light of humankind’s first innovation, her sister gave the first exasperated roll of the eyes.

Two equally important concepts discovered at once.

-

She watched them grow into things they started to call _people_. They developed into _families_ and _tribes_ and _communities_ , and she was absolutely fascinated when they discovered something that they called _love_. They created civilizations before her eyes (they finally had a concept of those squishy things in their heads that really hurt if you poked them) and she was in awe. She gave them ideas, inspirations, and they began to run with them. She gave them a concept of the stars, and they found _patterns_ and _rhythms_ and _night_ and _day_. She gave them the ability to find shelter, and they found _home_. She gave them light and they found _beauty_ and _hope_ and _awe_.

She walked among their streets, wearing a body like theirs, smiling with a face they would recognize as the feeling of waking up next to the love of their life, and they called her _Waverly_. She had no need for a name, not among her siblings or even for herself, for her family simply knew without needing words or thoughts or labels. But this was something these _humans_ had given her, a tiny gift that was just for her, and because of that, she held it dear.

-

The faces she loved so dearly went away, after a while.

She knew what death was, of course. She had seen it for aeons, watched as one species gave way to the next, but she hadn’t known their faces individually. She hadn’t learnt their smiles and laughs and hopes and dreams. She hadn’t been invited into their homes, as a guest, as a friend.

It was different, this time.

It hurt more.

-

She tried again, with Assyria and Babylon and Mycenae. She was, after all, such a lonely god. She had her siblings, sure, but they lacked humanity. They lacked hope. They lacked the kind of light that exists so brightly only because it is capable of burning out at any moment. They only knew vindication and power and boredom.

Each time she walked through a new civilization, they gave her a new name, one of their own, and a new face, a new identity that she collected like beads on a necklace, tucking them away to treasure for the day they would inevitably be gone. Inanna, Isis, Saraswati—she tried to carry on their memory, to hold them close so that they would survive the millennia with her.

She found a woman in Athens who had the softest skin she had ever felt beneath her fingertips and left the sweetest kisses along her jawline, and Waverly let herself come alive, letting fields flourish and crops grow and flowers bloom along with her. But mortals die, and the day her Athenian failed to wake, whole meadows wilted in mourning.

They called her Persephone, there, and said she stole all of springtime when her Athenian died, and she hadn’t bothered to correct them. She had learnt that though they listened to her with rapt attention, stood in awe of her power, they rarely acquiesced that even she could prove them wrong. They liked to be right, no matter what.

That had been a gift from one of her crueller siblings: hubris, to the point of blindness. She had long since given up trying to get them to see.

-

Time continued to tick ever forward, and Persephone became Ceres, and Ceres watched Rome burn with grief in her immortal heart.

“You cannot punish yourself like this,” her sister said, perched on the rock beside her as they watched the city crumble in the valley below. Her sister rarely took corporeal form like she did, but when she did, she was stunning and regal. The first people had given her a name, too, and she kept it, though not for the same reasons as Waverly had. They had called her Wynonna, and that had been enough. Simple. Without fanfare or flourish, as mourning should be. Grief only ever needed one name, and so, too, did she.

“Since when do you consider this punishment?” Waverly deflected, eyes glued to the horrific nightmare playing out below them. Rome would survive, of course, rebuild from the ashes like a great phoenix, but the scars would remain.

“I don’t,” her sister answered easily. “These mortals are useless, to me. They don’t know how to handle something great, and so they burn it to the ground instead. But you think they are worth something, and so it’s a punishment to you.”

Waverly looked at her in annoyance. “When did grief become so wise?”

“When hope began to grieve.”

Waverly turned her eyes back to the carnage, somber. “Not all of them are bad. Not all of them deserved this.”

“I know,” her sister said, and there was no victory in her words. “Death picks no favourites. It simply takes, regardless of fairness or deserving.”

“It’s horrible.” Waverly sobbed.

“To hope, I suppose it is.”

-

She learnt to weave her way in and out of civilization like a mirage. She learnt to interfere at a minimum, to love fast and light. To find a poet with a sly smile and become his muse for a single night, so that he would compose an epic of her that would survive millennia. To breathe life into a priestess who had forgotten the fact that reverence should always be based in love.

Damascus, Memphis, Varanasi, Beijing, Constantinople—Alexandria, she found quite wondrous until some idiot set its library ablaze.

She drifted through time, anachronous, watching history unfold with only a disinterested glace, because anything else always led to her heart shewn in two, and the destruction of a godly heart contains an ungodly amount of pain.

Cities were born and flourished and died around her. Revolutions tore empires to dust. War turned the dirt blood red, soaking the soles of her feet as she wandered the trenches, desperately trying to give hope where she could. Her sister wandered with her, beside her, because where there is no hope in war, there is always mourning.

They wandered long and far, hope and grief hand in hand, watching the rise of modern civilization through the window of experience: they had seen all this before. These people were no different from all the others. They, too, would fall soon enough, though Waverly still had to hope for change. Such was the curse of hope in the modern era.

-

The second millennium dawned like a grumpy teenager roused from sleep too early—it dragged itself up unwilling and unceremonious, throwing its denizens into it without care for their arguments against it. Time is funny like that: it never gives any choice at all, in the end.

That millennium was set to be a grouchy one; the gods could feel it in the air. The world was dissatisfied with what it had cherished for aeons. Faith waned. Belief— _true_ belief, in an idea or a story or a crackpot dream that just _might_ come true—it was all but forgotten, shrivelled in the bottom of the well of time. In this age of distraction, humans gave more love to their false gods than they gave even to themselves.

It is not that gods necessarily needed humans to believe in them in order to exist. It’s that they needed the mooring. They needed humans to give them purpose; otherwise they would wander, alone and cracked and afraid and utterly lost. They needed humans to give them the status of gods, or else they became rather like humans in too many ways.

The god of war wandered empty battlefields—except they were no battlefields, they were the ruined homes of those who had no place in this war. These people were innocent, caught in the crossfires; war was not supposed to consume them, and yet it did anyway as if it had a mind of its own and an insatiable bloodlust even a god could not control.

The god of knowledge sat in the middle of a university campus, as she always had, and she listened, trying to find the threads of great musings in her ears, trying to catch whisperings of ideas that would shatter the ground. But all she heard were cries, soft and falling deaf on the ears of those who were supposed to be teaching, nurturing, _caring_. They were _begging_ for it to stop; learning was becoming painful, detrimental. It was an industry, and these students were factory workers, churning out useless knowledge like they were pushing it off a conveyor belt. Blank, listless eyes read great works without any joy left. They didn’t care to learn anymore. They only wanted it to stop.

The god of justice watched with a heavy heart as another murderer walked free, because his lawyer had forsaken the god in the corner of the room. There was no justice in this trickery, this callous, soulless show of brute strength over truth. There was no justice in the way that people rooted for this, and then didn’t care when it came to pass. No one _cared_ that justice was beaten to a pulp in the middle of the courtroom. All they cared for were their precious words and outdated documents—their _excuses_.

The gods were lost and hungry for purpose, for devotion. The gods were all but silent, nearly dead by humanity’s own hand.

And yet humans still had the audacity to ask where the gods had gone.

-

The gods were nearly empty, and she, the god of hope—she nearly always found herself at a bar.

She was alone, as she so often was, drifting through bars and taverns across the world. She had found drinking sometime in the 5th century, after the loss of a particularly handsome bard who had had perfect diction and wonderful prose. She had tried not to make a habit of drinking to quell the sorrow, but it was becoming necessary in this new world. Hope had changed. It was as if humans had forgotten how to do even that; how to hope.

It was only here, in the quiet of barrooms, in the dead of night nearing last call, when all the revellers had gone home, and the only patrons left were the ones who lived here in spirit—here, she could find the dregs of hope. Here, the feeling of hope lost was almost palpable, like a thin coating of peanut shells lining the floor, as if everyone had shewn off a layer of old dreams as they walked through the door, had thrown it down in defeat. She could feel them; could find the hopes and dust them off, place them back on the shoulders of world-weary drunks, but with a new vigour. Sometimes the drunks would blink, sit up straighter, breathe easier and finish their drink—their _last_ drink. They would leave, and they would not come back, because they had found hope again.

Sometimes the weight of hope was simply too much for fragile shoulders, and they would crumple.

She would buy them a round, then. She would feel responsible. She would mourn with them.

Most barely noticed her, didn’t care to take heed of the hollow spirit who lived in the backmost booths of barrooms, who seemed to always have a glass of whiskey and a fantastical story to tell.

And she liked it that way. It was safer, to glide through this world as a wraith, untouched and unburdened.

Of course, in this world, she was no longer the god; in a loud and dirty place like a bar, the closest thing to a god that should exist is a bartender.

“You know, I can’t figure you out, Whiskey Neat,” a kind voice spoke from behind the bar, smooth and self-assured. Waverly smiled, just to herself, swirling the glass of whiskey (neat) with two fingers. She kept her eyes downcast, sitting at the end of the bar, a book propped open with one hand.

“And how’s that?” She asked, innocent enough, examining her page with interest. She felt the cheap wood of the bar squeak, bending just a touch as the bartender leaned forward across from her, watching her with intent. Only then did she look up, meeting warm brown eyes that sparkled in a way that reminded her of infant stars just beginning to stretch their rays like searching fingers across the universe for the very first time.

The bartender watched her for a moment, taking in the light that seemed otherworldly when it flickered in her eyes, before going on. “See, you come in here just about every night, like clockwork, always just after sunset,” she began, pushing a fray of messy red hair out of her eyes. Waverly set her book to the side. “And you order the same thing every night—a whiskey, neat—and then that’s _it_. You just sit here, reading your books. Never talking to anyone. Just reading.”

Waverly piqued an eyebrow. “And that’s so strange? I sit in a bar and I drink? Remind me never to tell you what I do at a park, you’ll lose your mind.” She laughed, and the smile that grew on the bartender’s face in response was all the hope she needed for the rest of the year.

The bartender waved her off impatiently, though not unkindly. “No, that’s all pretty normal—I mean, you don’t really seem like the usual kind of drunks we see in here, but I suppose life can always surprise you.” Her eyes wandered up and down Waverly with interest, curious, wondering at the story behind the woman before her. Waverly shrugged, letting her go on.

The bartender leaned forward on her forearms. The top two buttons of her shirt lay undone, her sleeves rolled up carelessly, and Waverly could just see the top of a lacy white bra just beneath the collar of her blue button-up. Her eyes followed the god with every movement, and Waverly hadn’t felt so _seen_ in perhaps centuries. “No,” she said. “See, what I don’t get about you is what you’re reading.”

That made Waverly pause, glass halfway to her lips. “Pardon?”

It was almost a shame the bartender didn’t know who (what) she was speaking to; not every human would get to say they’ve caught a god off guard.

She reached across the bar—barely a foot away, eyes locked with Waverly’s intently—tapping a slender finger to the cover of Waverly’s dirty tome. It was one from her private collection: an original Cicero manuscript she had preserved herself. One of her old favourites. “See, what I can’t figure out is what a girl like you is doing reading a book like that in a place like this. Last week, it was a dusty copy of _War and Peace_ , which I only know because I Google translated the title, and it looked like it was handwritten in Russian. The week before, I can’t even begin to guess what it was because I have no idea what language that was. And this place is a _shithole_ —I don’t even think there’s a high school in this town. Not the kind of place where the locals read a lot of classic literature, you know? Last week, someone signed for their tab with crayon. So, that’s what I don’t get. What’s your story, Whiskey Neat? What are you doing _here_ , of all places, in all the universe?”

Waverly took a moment to consider, taking a slow sip of her drink, watching with amusement at the way the bartender’s eyes followed her, sparkling in the dim glow of the bar. She had a kind face, and high cheekbones, and a sharp jaw that led to a sharp chin, but _fuck_ that smile eclipsed all of it. That glowing smile, like Waverly was the only other person in the room. It made her want to know more, to lean in and tell her a secret, share something with her that no one else got. It made her want to be greedy with time, grasp it in her hands and twist it in a knot so that it was stuck on this one moment, so that it never had to end. “It was Gilgamesh,” she said finally. The bartender blinked adorably. “And it was written in Sumerian.”

“You were just casually reading Gilgamesh in a cheap roadhouse bar in a rat-ass tiny town half an hour outside of Calgary?” Her brows drew into a crease, head tilted to the side in interest.

And she knew she shouldn’t—thousands of years of experience told her not to—because this woman was charming and beautiful and inviting, but beyond that she looked at Waverly like she didn’t need to see anything else, and Waverly had the sneaking suspicion she was looking back in just the same way. But alas, even gods have their flaws (even more so, all too often) and so she couldn’t help the way she traced the line of the woman’s collarbone hungrily with her eyes. She leant forward, elbows propped on the table, unconsciously drawing a thumb along her bottom lip as she smiled, shyly now.

“Where else am I supposed to be reading Gilgamesh, then?” She asked, flirting.

“Here is fine, if you don’t mind the view from the bar.” The bartender replied with a wink, voice soft and sultry. “My name is Nicole, by the way. Nicole Haught.”

She held a hand out across the space between them. Waverly hesitated only a moment, ignoring billions of years of sadness etched deep into her heart, before reaching out to take the hand, squeezing warmly. “Waverly,” she said, biting her lip as Nicole rubbed slow circles into the back of her hand with a thumb. She had been so, so lonely, for so, _so_ long. What was the harm in just _one_ bartender—in just _one_ night? Couldn’t gods be greedy sometimes, too? “My name is Waverly.”


	2. Electroweak Phase Transition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicole had become home in a million different ways, that it’s a wonder the universe didn’t tear them down sooner. The universe, after all, doesn’t much care for the happiness of its denizens, even those who predate it.

“Is there any language you _don’t_ know?” Nicole teased, drawing languid kisses along the line of Waverly’s shoulders, scraping teeth against the bare skin of her back.

Waverly laughed lowly, smiling into the pages of her book. Nicole lay half on top of her back, reading idly over her shoulder, while a hand gently drew circles on her waist. “I’m sure there are a few dialects I forgot to pick up along the way.”

“Show off,” Nicole mumbled into the crook of her neck, but Waverly could feel a smile pressed against her skin.

They had spent nearly every night like this for the past two weeks: Waverly would show at the bar at her usual cue, just after sunset, and she would nurse a glass of whiskey (neat) for the night, alternating between reading and sending flirtatious looks at Nicole from her booth across the room. Each time she would look up from the page, Nicole’s eyes would already be on her, fire burning soft in them, as if she had sensed Waverly’s need to see her again. Sometimes Nicole would catch her eye with a mischievous grin, dimpled and painted with wicked intentions. She would pass Waverly on her way to the store room for a break, catching the god’s wrist, tugging just _so_ , asking for company, and Waverly was quickly discovering that company was one thing she could never deny her. She would pin Waverly against the wall as if all the air in the room had suddenly gathered itself into a pocket right there, and if she moved too far away, she wouldn’t survive. She would kiss hot up her neck as Waverly wound needy fingers in her hair, and it seemed she would do everything in her power to make Waverly snap— _break_ —moan loud when she found the spot just beneath Waverly’s ear that made the world tilt and she rolled their hips _in_ and—

Other times, they would simply pass the evening in a lovely silence. Nicole would refill her glass without Waverly needing to ask, and Waverly would hum her thanks, catching Nicole’s wrist with light fingers and a soft, searching voice: “I’ll see you tonight?”

She’d be waiting by the back door, leaning against the brick wall in the shitty outside lighting, following the familiar roadmap of constellations in the sky until Nicole was finished closing up. Then they would almost stumble the five blocks back to Nicole’s apartment, kissing and flirting and teasing down the streets and all the way up to her fourth-floor walk-up. It was routine now—electric, exhilarating, _even-a-god-can’t-believe-that-this-is-happening_ routine. It was an endless dark sky come alive with colour and song. It was everything to look forward to during the daylight hours, when hope was eclipsed by the endless soundtrack that this new world forced upon them all. It was _happy_. Here, draped lazily across Nicole’s bed, covered in nothing but a thin sheet and losing track of her place on the page because Nicole’s kisses had become more purposeful down her back and around to her ribcage—here, Waverly was _happy_.

She laughed, letting the book (an original edition _Les Misérables_ ) drop to the floor as Nicole rolled her onto her back, settling between her legs. The book bounced once, old spine creaking as it fell open to the note written on the inside cover: ‘ _Waverly, I do hope you find yourself in these pages, and that your sister might read this as well, for it is all for her. –Victor_ ’

“Are you jealous I’m paying more attention to the book than to you?” Waverly teased, wrapping hands around Nicole’s neck, pulling her down so that their bodies pressed flush together.

Nicole smirked, lifting Waverly’s leg up to wrap it around her waist. “Jealous?” She raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Why would I be jealous? I’m pretty sure a book can’t do _this_ ,” she sucked on the spot on Waverly’s neck that she knew drove Waverly just a _little_ wild.

Waverly groaned lowly, head falling back and rolling her hips in response. “I don’t know,” she mused, voice sultry and low. “It’s a _really_ good book.”

“Yeah?” Nicole murmured, moving her lips from Waverly’s neck to her jawline, finding the lobe of her ear with a teasing tongue. Waverly shivered as Nicole’s hot breath warmed the shell of her ear. “Guess I’ll just have to be better.”

\---

Grains of sand slipped through the neck of the Great Hourglass of the Universe that sat upon the desk of the god of time, effortlessly and unstoppably, and Waverly hadn’t known it was possible to feel heaven like this.

Heaven itself, of course, was really just a made-up concept that the humans created to make themselves feel better about the inevitable dark void of nothingness that was death. But it was a nice story, and for narrative purposes, it fit what Waverly felt quite well.

Nicole made her feel like, just maybe, she was wrong, and heaven was real. Nicole was kind and warm and attentive and funny and when Waverly looked at her, she felt like finally, after all this time, she was _home_. It was something she had seen for millennia, but had never actually experienced for herself, even through all those lost loves in ancient times. In all the history of the Everything, Waverly was sure, there had never existed anything or anyone quite like her. It was a feeling that was almost entirely too human for a god like her to understand.

Of course, Waverly knew enough to understand that there were some things a god simply couldn’t understand, because they were too large and too inhuman. Humans lived and died like sparks jumping from an open flame, bright and searing and gone in the blink of an eye. Gods lived like the cherry of the embers, glowing low and everywhere, unwavering and undying until the whole damn fire was extinguished. A spark cannot know what it is like to uphold an entire structure, and an ember cannot know what it is like to fly free.

And yet, Nicole still kissed her warmly as they fell asleep at night, wrapped up in one another, Waverly listening to the steady beat of her heart like a lullaby. She held Waverly tight, as if Waverly were something infinitely precious and otherworldly, as if she was a god to be loved and revered, without even knowing at all that’s exactly what she held in her arms at night. She did all that, loved that sincerely, all the while honestly believing it was all human.

_Love?_ Waverly’s mind would whisper, unbidden. _That’s an awfully human thing to feel._

But then there was Nicole, and her eyes were shining, and she would kiss Waverly fervently, like there was nothing at all she needed besides, and Waverly would decide that if this was something humans had that gods didn’t, maybe being human wasn’t quite so tragic after all. 

\---

Three months slipped by in a wonder, and the thing that used the name Waverly had never known such peace in all her millennia.

Her siblings had never felt loneliness—at least, not like she had. Like Waverly, they had sought out moments of entertainment with mortals, sought out company for a night, something different amid the melancholic monotony of the aeons. But, to her siblings, that’s all they were: just moments, bright and shining, but gone in a flash and never returned to again.

But Waverly had grown lonely, watching an entire world grow and thrive and breathe and _live_ right before her eyes, and she could do nothing to join it.

And yet, impossibly, now there was Nicole, who was warmth and laughter and all too human, all too mortal, and to Waverly, she had become a home.

She had become a home in the way she would ask Waverly to read her books aloud, the both of them lazed on the couch on a quiet Sunday spent at Nicole’s, enjoying each other’s comfort and quiet company. (Because Sundays were a thing for Waverly, now. Time had meaning suddenly; the days passed individually, significantly. Sundays were the days Nicole was free from both work and class at the police academy, and so those were the days they claimed for themselves, where they didn’t have to share each other with anyone else.)

She had become home in the way she would hum to herself as she folded laundry in the living room, swaying slightly to the tune in her own mind, and Waverly would smile and watch, smitten, until Nicole would notice. Then she would drop the shirt she had been pressing neat and pull Waverly in with a twirl, entwining their fingers and leading her in a slow dance around the living room. She would sing the words quiet, so low Waverly almost couldn’t make them out, but after a while she noticed it was always the same song she would sing as she led them in a magnificent waltz as if they were in a grand ballroom rather than a small apartment living room with too many pictures of her grandfather’s cat on the walls.

“ _I didn't want to do it. You made me want you, and all the time you knew it. I guess you always knew it…_ ”

She had become home in a million different ways, that it’s a wonder the universe didn’t tear them down sooner. The universe, after all, doesn’t much care for the happiness of its denizens, even those who predate it.

At least, that’s what Waverly would tell herself, rather than admitting perhaps that it was only her own faults that created her problems. Even primordial deities preferred not to admit fault, if they could defer it to someone (or some _thing_ ) else. Where else would humans have learnt that from?

“What are you thinking about?” Nicole asked one day, as they lounged draped across the couch in the living room of the apartment Waverly kept in the city (more as a house for her book collection, but lately its living spaces had begun to find use, as well).

Waverly lay on her stomach, cheek resting just above her heart. She blinked slow, nearly half-asleep in the fading light of another perfect Sunday. (Sundays were definitely her favourite now, she was sure of it). A blanket lay over them both, their legs entwined, and Nicole played absently with the ends of her hair as she dozed. She hummed quietly, taking a long, deep breath of Nicole’s perfume. “The universe,” she mumbled in a drowsy voice. “Stars. Shakespeare. Fall of the Byzantine Empire. Teletubbies. I like listening to your heartbeat.”

“You do?” Nicole asked, smiling down at the woman tucked beneath her chin who was on the brink of sleep and so wondrous without even meaning to be.

Waverly nodded. “I do,” she breathed. “Reminds me you’re alive. Here. Mine.”

Beneath her, she felt the steady rhythm of Nicole’s heart quicken, jump in excitement, in recognition that _I feel it too_ , and she smiled into the skin of her collarbone, pecking a kiss there before slipping into sleep…

Three sharp knocks cracked on the door woke her, and she groaned angrily, curling in closer to Nicole.

Nicole chuckled, tugging a curling lock of her hair. “Wave?” She whispered, and Waverly only groaned in response. The knocking came again, louder now. “You gonna get that, baby?”

Waverly screwed her eyes shut tight. “No.”

A third time the knocking came, this time like claps of thunder in Waverly’s ears, and a rude voice yelled through the door. “ _Waverly! I know you’re in there!_ ”

Waverly froze, a strange buzz in her mind, going rigid atop Nicole’s chest and eyes flying open.

“Wave?” Nicole asked, voice edged with worry.

Banging, again. “ _Waverly,_ vacca stulta _, open this goddamn door before I do!_ ”

Waverly sat bolt upright in a flash, staring at Nicole with wide eyes, face pale as a sheet and painted with panic. “ _Shit._ ”

“Shit?” Nicole echoed, confused.

“ _Shit!_ ” Waverly shrieked as the front door was kicked in by an angry-looking woman dressed all in black and reeking of whiskey.

(Because, really, how _else_ would a god announce themselves, if not unnecessarily dramatically? They had been alive for aeons. They had to shake things up every now and then _somehow_.)

Nicole reacted on instinct, sweeping Waverly around and pressing her into the couch, rolling off and up in one fluid motion, grabbing a dirty knife from their empty dinner plates on the coffee table. She looked almost imposing, too, brandishing the knife with an authority that spoke to how she knew to use it, and exactly how precious the thing she was protecting was to her. _Almost_ imposing, if she hadn’t only been wearing a pair of boxers and an old UCalgary varsity women’s basketball shirt, and if she hadn’t been pointing a steak knife at a god.

“ _Whoa_ , shit, where’s the hold-up?” The woman dressed in black said sarcastically, holding her hands up in surrender as she moved past the bashed-in door. Waverly scowled into the couch; she was going to have to get that replaced.

“Who are you?” Nicole demanded in a strong voice, completely devoid of all softness she had held overflowing in her heart just moments before.

The woman scoffed, rolling her eyes incredulously. “Who am _I_? _Pfft_. Kids these days, am I right Waves? No respect. I bet she hasn’t even built one of us an altar.”

Nicole blinked like she was faced with a strange woman who had just kicked down her girlfriend’s door and then started up a casual conversation she knew nothing about. “What?”

“Never mind,” the woman waved her off. “Waves, come on. Who the fuck is the gingersnap?”

Waverly sighed, sending a silent prayer up to no one in particular (which, really, was technically just talking to herself, but she liked to tell herself she wasn’t the only one in the universe listening) and rolled off the couch, onto her feet. “Nicole, put the knife down.”

“What?” Nicole looked at her in shock. Unbidden, the knife slipped from her hand, fast, embedding itself into the wall. Nicole floundered, staring at her empty hands in disbelief. “What…”

Waverly wheeled on her sister, fire beginning to simmer in godly eyes, to which her sister raised merely a challenging brow. She clenched her jaw shut tight, very conscious of the fact that her sister had her checkmated here—she couldn’t make Wynonna leave, not in any mortal way; and unlike Wynonna, she actually cared that Nicole didn’t see her as a godly being. So instead, she pulled her half-buttoned shirt (Nicole’s shirt, really, and Wynonna had noticed she wasn’t wearing anything else besides that) into a more respectable position and put her hands on her hips. “Nicole, this is my sister, Wynonna.”

“Sister?” Nicole echoed, still staring at the knife in the wall in confusion. “You have a…”

“A sister, yes,” Wynonna snapped, impatient with this mortal already. “Family ties are so very shocking, I know. Now who the fuck are you—Nicole, was it?”

Nicole stood slightly taller at that, chin held high and sliding her gaze as cold as ice to look the goddess Wynonna in the eye, and for a moment Waverly was almost proud of her, sticking her ground in front of the cosmic force of death. It was stupid, of course, but brave. (More stupid than brave, but she didn’t know that). “Her girlfriend, yes.”

Now it was Wynonna’s turn to wheel on her sister, who looked very much like she wanted to disappear. (In fact, she was trying very hard _not_ to disappear on instinct; that would have been difficult to explain to Nicole later). “ _Girlfriend?_ You have a _girlfriend?_ ”

Waverly gulped, looking every inch a child scolded. “Um. Kind of.”

Of all things to take away from the conversation, Nicole gaped at _that_. “ _Kind of?_ ”

Waverly rolled her eyes, waving erratically between the two of them, exasperated. “ _Faex_ , yes sister, and yes girlfriend, okay? Now what in the actual living _shit_ are you doing here, Wy?”

Wynonna smiled sweetly, batting her lashes. “I just wanted to check up on my little sister. I haven’t seen you in a while, Waves. Just wanted to see what you were…” she eyed Nicole up and down with a lip curled in disdain, “ _doing._ ”

Nicole narrowed her eyes dangerously, livid giving way to apoplectic on her face, and crossed her arms over her chest in defense.

Waverly sighed, cutting both of them off before either could antagonize the other even more. “I appreciate the concern, Wy, but that’s not necessary. Clearly, I’m fine and clearly, we’re busy, so…”

“So dinner?” Wynonna said conversationally, slipping the worn leather jacket from her shoulders and dropping it on the coat rack beside the (still kicked-in) door with a smile.

Nicole scowled. “We already ate.”

Wynonna snorted. “Oh, I _bet_ you did.”

“ _Okay!_ ” Waverly snapped. “You,” she pointed at Nicole, who looked immediately chastised, cowing beneath the rage-filled glare of her girlfriend. “You wait here. And _you_ ,” she swept the accusing finger to her sister. “Kitchen. _Now_.”

She all but dragged her sister into the next room before anyone could argue, leaving Nicole in confusion to deal with the kicked-in door and the knife in the wall by herself.

“Girlfriend, Waves?” Wynonna wheeled on her the moment the door swung shut behind them. “A fucking _girlfriend_?”

Waverly scowled, defensive. “It’s none of your business.”

“It’s not?” Wynonna scoffed, “Because one of us slipping up with a mortal isn’t going to be shit for all of us? They’re not like they used to be, Waves. They don’t think we’re miracles in this world; they’ll dissect us. Didn’t you see _Batman vs. Superman_?”

Death was a big fan of going to the movies. She liked the popcorn.

Waverly rolled her eyes. “She’s not like that, Wy.”

“No?” Wynonna challenged in that insufferable way she did when she knew she was right, and Waverly knew she was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. (Even godly siblings were still petty in that way; some things are just universal constants). “What’s your plan here, then? What were you going to tell her in six months, when she asks to meet your parents? Or what about in five years, when she notices you’re not getting any older? We can’t exist alongside the humans anymore, Waverly. You know this.”

Waverly said nothing, clenching her jaw tight as she began piling dirty dishes in the sink to wash. Wynonna rolled her eyes and waved her hand over the pile, vanishing them immediately. Waverly gave her an exasperated glare, annoyance quickly giving way to rage deep in her belly. As if this was any of her sister’s business. As if she had any idea what it was like to be hope, to have everyone take from you all the time, to have your entire self given to the whole of humanity only for them to horde it with greed, to deny you anything in return. Wynonna returned her glare in kind. “Washing dishes? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re an all-powerful immortal being. You watched the birth of the universe like it was Friday night cable. You don’t need to wash dishes, and you _certainly_ don’t need to shack up with some perky redhead _tart_ —”

“ _And what if I just want to?_ ” Waverly all but exploded, anger burning bright in her eyes, deep and true and unmitigable by anything other than the woman in the other room who was trying to figure out how to fix the shattered door hinges. Wynonna blinked, taken aback by the rage of hope, the desperation; such a hurricane was so uncharacteristic of her sister, but Waverly didn’t slow, voice rising to a tempest as an unnatural wind shook the cupboard doors around them. “What if I just _want_ this? What if I just _like_ her? What if I even love her? I’m not like the rest of you. I can’t keep living like this—half in the world, half out, just a memory from a civilization that burnt up 10,000 years ago. I’m _lonely_ , Wy. I’m _fucking_ lonely, and I do not give a _shit_ if you think it’s stupid because my fucking god, she helps with that, so just _fuck OFF_ —”

Everything in the kitchen shattered at once. Shards of glass rained down on them from the cupboards above, the kitchen quaking at the anger radiating off two gods, threatening to tear apart at the seams. Behind them, Nicole burst through. It was as if even the molecules of glass knew not to harm her; they made way as she moved to stand behind Waverly, protective to the last, pulling her in close though the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as if the very air around them was electrically charged. She didn’t understand what she had heard—only bits and pieces, fragments of angry phrases and the _clear_ impression that Wynonna didn’t like her—but Waverly stood like a storm in human form, and so she was here. She wrapped a protective arm around Waverly’s waist, feeling her girlfriend shift to tuck herself into her side, searching for more contact, and she rubbed a slow circle on her waist with a thumb.

Wynonna narrowed her eyes at Nicole, glaring at her down her nose, an unreadable but clearly unfriendly expression on her face. “ _Fine_ ,” she growled through clenched teeth. “Sure. Whatever. Do whatever the fuck you want with your half-naked Ginger Spice. Just don’t forget who you are.” Moving toward the door, glass crunching beneath her boots, she gave Waverly a heavy look, laden with centuries of meaning that Nicole couldn’t even begin to understand. Then her gaze was shifted to Nicole, and suddenly Nicole couldn’t remember what it felt like to be brave. She cowered back, a shiver running up her spine as she had the sudden distinct feeling that she was about to lose everything she held dear. “Don’t forget _what_ you are, Waverly. When it comes down to it, she won’t.” 

And then she was gone through the door, gone in a wave of whiskey and briny tears breezing in through the shattered window. Mourning left hope and mortality to clean up the mess alone, as always. 

\---

Wynonna left them alone after that, and Nicole made a point to not ask too often after her sister, patient with her in a way that Waverly didn’t think she deserved.

As previously demonstrated, the universe does not actively do anything besides be an asshole. Waverly knew this, and yet she had simply chosen to forget it, for the few months she had known Nicole. Or perhaps Nicole had just _made_ her forget. Nicole had turned everything she had known about the universe on its head, for even just a little while, until it all came crashing down on her once again, and then it was like a meteor crashing down, its impact being felt in waves all across the world.

Forests wilted as the anxiety built in Waverly’s chest, for once too worried about her own future, her own happiness, to sustain the hope of springtime to come. Locusts devoured crops as guilt ate away at her with each month that passed. Stock markets turned down and economies began to dive as hope itself lost sight of better times to come, too. Economists blamed universal healthcare and liberals blamed capitalism and capitalism blamed foreigners and all throughout, hope was to blame for her selfishness. She tried to ignore it, tried to tell herself this was nothing, just a bump in the infinite road that would be her life, but this was her first time dealing with anything so human as guilt. She wasn’t great at it.

As stated before, even gods have their flaws.

Even more so, when it came to redheaded cops with adorable dimples and longer legs than even a god like Waverly could believe belonged on one woman.

Of course, as is so often the case with one’s weakness, it always knows when you are at your most vulnerable, your most delicate, and only then will it attack. And as Waverly tried to deal with human emotion for the first time in all of time, she was nothing if not vulnerable. That was, perhaps, the problem: Nicole made her vulnerable, because Nicole knew her.

If only she knew just how soon she would actually _understand_ what she knew of Waverly. It would probably have changed nothing at all, but still. A woman living in a world of gods needs every leg-up she can get (even if she had plenty of leg already).

“Hey, Wave?” Nicole said one day, months past the day she had met Waverly’s sister, while they lay in bed together on another lazy Sunday. Waverly sat up against the headboard, reading one of her boundless number of books— _The Iliad_ , this time—and Nicole lay on her stomach, idly playing with her fingers as she tried to think of a way to ask what she wanted to.

Waverly hummed, not looking up from her book. “Yes, darling?”

“Are… we okay?” She asked slowly, uncertain. Her voice was small and shaking slightly, as if she didn’t really want to know the answer.

Waverly looked up from her page at that, eyebrows drawn in confusion, regarding her girlfriend carefully. “I thought so. Do… do you think we are?”

“No, no, of course I do,” Nicole assured her quickly, sitting up and tucking her feet beneath her. She looked elsewhere, chewing her lip nervously. Her fingers played with the bedsheets, plucking at the fabric, and Waverly could practically hear the storm of thoughts in her mind. Waverly waited for her to find where she wanted to start. Finally, she took a breath. “Of course I do, it’s just… you… well, you seem nervous lately, and I’m… I’m nervous.”

The guilt stabbed her heart again, and Waverly set aside her book, leaning forward to take Nicole’s fidgeting hands in hers. “You worry about me, baby?” She asked playfully, and Nicole had to sigh in exasperation.

“You already knew that.”

Waverly giggled, though the tension didn’t ease inside her. “I did, I just like hearing you say it,” she said, leaning in for a kiss.

Nicole rolled her eyes but obliged nonetheless, though when Waverly tried to kiss deeper, she pulled back, serious once more. “Are you sure that you’re okay, though? That _we’re_ okay?” She asked again, leaning their foreheads together and looking down at their fingers locked together between them.

She was beautiful like this, Waverly thought: shy and quiet, uncertain of where to plant her feet that was safe. She was beautiful in any way, really, but moments like these, when it was just the two of them and Nicole dropped her confidence, her cocky half-grin, her grandeur, and she looked at Waverly with eyes devoid of any protection, completely open for Waverly to fall right into—these were the moments Waverly forgot what it felt like to witness the birth of a star, because nothing in all of space and time could ever compare to the woman right in front of her. In these moments, Nicole was everything without even knowing it.

In these moments, gods didn’t look like Waverly.

Gods looked like her.

Now, as a point of theological philosophy, does a god believe in God? Reasonably, the answer should be: They don’t need to, because they simply have to look in the mirror. It would be like believing in gravity. Whether or not you believed in it, it would still make you fall downward if you tripped on the stairs.

And so, Waverly had no god to make amendments to, to appease the guilt clenching her stomach so hard she could barely breathe. Having a higher power to believe in gives one a certain measure of accountability, but gods have no one more powerful than them, no one to fear a smiting from if they mess up. Waverly had no one, besides the woman in front of her who was looking at her so earnest, so unsure, that it broke her heart to think just how much she had withheld.

_Would you forgive me, if you knew? Would you be afraid of me? Would I lose you, if I told you?_

She felt sick suddenly, choking on the words piling up in her throat, trying to break free all at once. “I—”

Fear gave way to concern in Nicole’s face. “Baby, what is it?”

_‘It’ is that I love you, but I won’t ever be able to keep you._

She shook her head, adamant. “I can’t,”

“What do you mean?” Nicole asked. “You can’t what?”

“I…” There were no words left inside her, anymore. “I can’t…”

She looked into Nicole’s eyes, and suddenly she saw a tragedy unfold right before her, in her hands as she gathered up Nicole’s face in them, held her close, and saw time wreck it all before she could do anything to stop it. Nicole would age. She would grow old, the light falling from her eyes, red hair turning silver and shining. Her bones would bend under the weight of experience. Her body would decay, and then she would die, and time would march on without her, no one to remember the police deputy from Calgary who had the sweetest laugh in all the universe. She would change, while Waverly would be in a stasis for the rest of time, and there was no hope for that.

It was ironic, really.

Hope watched her heart crumble to dust in her hands and was hopeless to stop it. There was nothing she could do. For this, there was not a sliver of hope to save them.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice wretched in a sob. “I’m so sorry, darling.”

“Wave—”

Waverly shushed her, pulling her in for a kiss that was too bruising and desperate to be anything other than a horrible goodbye. Waverly tried to hold on as long as she could, and it tore her in half to let go, but by the time Nicole opened her eyes again, she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Vacca stulta_ \- Latin: "You stupid cow"   
> _Faex_ \- Latin: "Shit" 
> 
> Angst? Y'all wanted angst, right? Hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr [@astrophysical-bean](http://astrophysical-bean.tumblr.com/)! I love hearing from every one of you, and I'm so glad y'all seem as excited about this as I am!!! Someone please come ask me about what the electroweak phase transition was, I love talking astrophysics. 
> 
> Until next friday, 
> 
> \--Bean


	3. Quantum Chromodynamic Phase Transition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere, there was a god of dramatic irony, and she was laughing to herself as she sat alone in the dark, spinning such a Greek tragedy as theirs.

The week hope left her heart in the hands of a mortal and disappeared from the face of the Earth was, perhaps, the worst week in human history since Pandora had opened the box Waverly’s sister—who selfishly hoarded the name Willa—had “gifted” her.

(Willa was one of the darker shadows of the universe, living off the vengeance she created in the hearts of humans, who were not naturally so petty and jealous as they are today. Willa hadn’t liked their attitude, and so she gave them everything they didn’t want—anger without reason, jealousy without cause, and most of all, vengeance without relent. A never-ending thirst for revenge, vindication; an insatiable greed to simply be _right_.)

And yet, the week Waverly stayed away from Nicole after only having her for so short a time was somehow even _worse_ than the week humanity _literally_ gained every single one of its worst qualities. Truly, there was something to be said for the love of a god. It was nothing if not whole, true, and unforgiving.

Hope was cracked, shattered, wandering too far from her heart, and because of this the world began to burn.

Deserts flooded, and forests fell to ash, and it was as if the very flame that had brightened humanity for aeons had been reduced to a flickering, smoldering wick, nearly extinguished entirely. The weak of conscience rose in power, in influence, and none had the heart left to fight as they tore societies to shambles. Humans lost their will to help others. Families shattered—if such a concept of family even existed anymore, which was highly debatable. Democracy failed. Innocence was punished as if it were a capital offence. The weak fell down, and the strong crushed them down even further.

Hope is an immense thing—it is the ability each and every soul in the universe has to imagine something _better_. In a way that was more implicit than even a god could have thought, it had become a symbiotic thing, connecting everyone and everything, in their common need to move forward instead of back. It had become the basis of everything humans would do—they would always act in hope: hope for love, hope for the future, hope for change, hope for constancy; even simply hope for a smile from the one you love.

You tell that joke, just so you can hear their laugh, witness their irradiance, hoard their smiles in your collection of treasures. That’s how hope works.

It drives you for more, and when it’s gone (as Pandora was once told, long ago in a cruel joke played by a god with a twisted sense of humour) then humanity truly has nothing.

\---

“You’re killing them,” grief lamented into the empty void that had become of hope.

Hope sobbed. “I cannot lose her, sister, but I cannot have her, either.”

Her sister sighed, a great monumental breath. “I know,” she said. “But if you kill them all, you’ll lose her anyway.”

“She’ll be gone in the blink of my eye, nonetheless.”

“And you’ll be able to forget her, after that? Let humanity go on? Let some other civilization take their place, rise up from the ashes you created, and you’ll forget that you ever loved her at all?”

Hope stilled, a momentary lull as the storm’s eye passed over them. “…I never said I loved her.”

“You mourn her already, Waverly, and so I can see into your grief. You love her. You know you do.”

Hope was silent, chewing her lip. She was nervous; grief surmised she had learnt that from her human— _Nicole_ , she corrected herself. She had learnt that nervous habit from Nicole. “I still cannot have her,” she said, finally, carefully.

“But can you live without her?”

“We’re immortal, Wy. We will always live, regardless of anything.”

Grief shrugged. “Perhaps, but that simply means our hearts can break for the rest of time. Does that sound like life to you, if yours is breaking without her until the end of days?”

Hope scowled, so sisterly. “I wish death were not so wise.”

Grief laughed. “I exist at the end of every life, sister. That means I learn everyone’s final summations of life. Death gives much clarity for what can be learnt by the living.”

Hope was somber, the storm nearly gone now. “I love her.”

“I know.”

“But she will die.”

“She will.”

“But I love her.”

“So go tell her that.”

\---

The week the world fell to pieces was nothing more than a startlingly apt work of pathetic fallacy, for Nicole Haught.

She had fallen in love, you see. She had fallen desperately, hopelessly, stupidly, unreasonably in love, and now her love was gone, and so it was as if her own heart were gone, too. It was missing, her chest left aching and empty, a vacant residency where so much light had lived only a short time ago.

Waverly had stopped calling. She had stopped coming by. Her apartment was empty, only a note left on the kitchen table that said “ _I’m so sorry, my love_ ” in her slanted cursive that Nicole had once loved, but now filled her with poison.

She skipped work. Told her friends to go screw themselves, when they tried to help. Her appetite shrivelled; her cheeks sank gaunt into her face, and dark circles bruised beneath her eyes. Sleep was something she had actively started to avoid.

(Waverly was supposed to be there, when she slept, tucked into her arms, safe and sound and _there_ , but now she was gone, so Nicole no longer slept.)

She existed in such a state of emptiness that she began to wonder if someone, somewhere hadn’t dug up an old box and opened it, even though its original owner had been told not to; if hope hadn’t fluttered free from the box, flying away, abandoning Nicole just like Waverly had.

(Somewhere, there was a god of dramatic irony, and she was laughing to herself as she sat alone in the dark, spinning such a Greek tragedy as theirs.)

She stood in the middle of her living room, looking around with red-rimmed eyes and a hollow feeling pulsing in her veins, a bottle hanging loosely in hand. It was nearly full, mind you, just a few sips gone. Just enough to numb the sound in her head that sounded like Waverly’s perfect laugh twinkling right next to her, to erase the ghost of Waverly’s arms curling around her waist, hugging her tight. If she closed her eyes, she could call up the feeling in her mind perfectly as if it were almost real, as if Waverly was really here, standing in front of her, tucking herself into the crook of her neck, kissing the hollow there and—

Her fingers itched for it, and her hand closed tighter around the neck of the bottle as if of its own accord, daring her to throw it _all_ away.

Waverly’s sweater was draped over the back of the couch. A small stack of her books sat on the coffee table. Pictures of the two of them littered the mantle: Nicole on her graduation day, wearing her freshly pressed dress police uniform, laughing as Waverly planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek in pride. The two of them squished into a booth at the bar, surrounded by friends but taking no notice of the picture being taken, because Waverly was telling her something at the moment and Nicole was leant in close, looking at her like she had hung the stars in the sky. Waverly, sitting on the couch reading a book, wearing nothing but Nicole’s uniform shirt, sleeves rolled up and only half-buttoned. Her hair was messy, thrown up into a lazy bun with pieces flying everywhere, and Nicole thought she was beautiful.

That one was her favourite, by far. It was simple, messy and elegant. It had no story behind it. Nicole couldn’t even remember what day of the week it had been. She had just seen Waverly like that one day, and needed to capture it in a picture, to remember forever the woman she loved.

She hurled the bottle directly at it, shattering both it and the bottle at once, glass and whiskey showering everywhere.

She scowled, cross at her own uncontrolled rage, berating herself for being so stupid, so rash, so affected by one woman—and really, Nicole told herself, she was just _one_ woman, anyway. What should Nicole care—she _shouldn’t_ have cared—Waverly was just _one_ woman, and she had made her feelings _perfectly_ clear by up and leaving without even so much as a proper goodbye—and so what if she had shiny hair, or sparkling eyes, or a dazzling smile, and the kindest heart Nicole had ever witnessed, and—

She stumbled to clean up the mess.

(She may have been a bit tipsy, dangerously sleep deprived, and in the middle of a very serious emotional breakdown, but she wasn’t raised in a fucking _barn_.)

The showering glass had sliced the skin of her arms, and across her cheek, so that blood welled up and dripped down her face like a tear, and honestly, what kind of sad symbolism is that? It sounded like the symbolism of a shitty grade 9 English essay. She was such a pathetic cliché, but she would care about that later, maybe. For now, she couldn’t even be bothered to wipe the blood off her cheek. The pain of it was the first thing she had been able to feel besides anger and emptiness since she found the note. It was a welcome shattering to the pretense of Hell all around her.

A knock at the door roused her bleary attention, and she rose grumbling, swaying on her feet a bit as she stumbled from one step to the next. The world spun a bit, and her stomach lurched as the whiskey fought her insides—maybe she had drunk more than she thought. Maybe it was just the tiredness and the lack of eating.

Wrenching the door open, she nearly ripped the handle clean off in her rage, every intent in her bent toward telling whoever was there to kindly but immediately _fuck off_.

But she opened the door, and all the breath left her at once, because there stood Waverly, beautiful as ever, even in the pouring rain. Her hair was scraggly and wet, hanging in ratty tendrils down her back and her blouse was plastered to her skin. It was a maelstrom tonight, thunder and lightning crackling in the atmosphere like warring gods. Nicole hadn’t even noticed. Waverly shivered in the cold midnight air, hugging herself, and she looked up at Nicole with pleading eyes, guilt written in bold all across her face. It tore Nicole wide open.

She looked Nicole up and down, regret washing anew with every detail she took in: Nicole’s bloodshot eyes, her unwashed hair, her gaunt cheeks sunken into pale skin, the blood puddling at her feet, the reek of whiskey even from across the threshold. She gaped, mouth moving in silence, at a loss for what to say.

“Nicole—”

“What the _fuck?_ ” Nicole snapped, rage rising up inside her like a tidal wave, crashing to the forefront of everything, eclipsing anything else: her shock, her pain, the way her heart thudded in her chest at just the sight of Waverly again, _here_. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, though whether it was out of anger, or simply to stop herself from reaching out reflexively, like a plant reaching out toward its sun.

In all honesty, she hadn’t known what she would want to say to Waverly again, if she ever saw her again. If she had been asked, this past week, she wouldn’t have had an answer, but here, now, with Waverly standing in front of her, it all poured out of her at once, everything she hadn’t known she needed to say. “What the _actual_ fuck are you doing here, Waverly? It’s been a _week_. A fucking _week_. No calls, no explanations— _nothing_. Just a stupid fucking note on your kitchen table. Was that all I was worth to you? A fucking _note_? Couldn’t even break up with me in person?”

It was probably unfair, some distant still-sane part of her knew, to throw that back in Waverly’s face like that; but everything else inside Nicole overpowered any sense of reason she might have had anymore. She wasn’t a reasonable woman; not in this. In this, she was broken and _angry_ , and so she kept going, voice rising above the sweep and swell of the storm that whipped at their clothes, angry gales like the hands of gods, trying to rip them away. “I fucking _love_ you, Waverly. I love you more than I even know what to do with. I love you more than I ever thought I could possibly love anything, and you left me in a fucking _note_. And now you’re here—why? To apologize? To get your stuff back? One last screw for the road, and then you’ll be on your way? What do you _want_ , Waverly?”

Silence hung between them, palpable and suffocating, more frigid than the rainwater falling down the collar of Waverly’s shirt, and to her it seemed longer than even the eternity she had already lived. She stared at the woman she loved, a disaster by her own hand, and she was _so sorry._

_She_ had done this to Nicole, because she was afraid, because she hadn’t known the enormity of her own heart, and she hadn’t known how to handle that it wasn’t her own anymore. There was no way to take that back now, she knew—not even gods can turn back time—but she could ease the pain. She could bandage the wounds, if Nicole would let her.

She breathed in, slow, licking her lips, heartbeat thundering in her ears. She was nervous— _nervous_. How unbelievably _human_. But then again, showing up on your love’s doorstep in the middle of the night while the world burns around you, just to beg forgiveness—that’s pretty human, too, so maybe this was just her now. Maybe she was just a little bit human now, because of Nicole. Maybe that wasn’t the worst thing, either, and so she breathed out and spoke all at once. “ _You_ ,”

Nicole blinked. The tumult inside her stilled just a moment. “What?”

Waverly pushed herself up straighter, chin held high as she repeated herself with more conviction, and even more fear. “You,” she said, words filing up in her throat to tumble from her lips before she could even stop them. “I want _you_ , Nicole. I want you… I want you so much I don’t understand it. I want you more than I even knew possible. I want—no, I _need_ you in my life, because I don’t think I can live without you anymore. Not _really_ live, anyway. I want to tell you I’m sorry for leaving— _fuck_ , I am _so_ sorry—and I’m such a coward. I’m so sorry for that, too.

“I want to tell you that I love you more than should even be physically possible. I want to tell you every day of the rest of your life that I love you, and I want to hear you say you love me, too, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so wonderful as hearing you say it, even if you’re angry and screaming at me on your front stoop in the middle of a rainstorm. I want anything you want to give me, Nicole. I… I want you for the rest of my life.”

_For the rest of time_.

Because gods do not end.

The words hung suspended in air between them, tangible and terrifying as Waverly felt so bare all of a sudden.

Nicole stood hunched over, leaning heavily on the doorframe, looking as if it was taking all her strength to just keep upright as the world spun all around her, settling back in on its axis, fixed to Waverly in front of her once more. A million dark things passed in front of her eyes that were so cold, so hard and full of aching that Waverly hardly recognized them. They were no longer soft and shining and hopeful. They were bloodshot, somber, the light inside them gone.

But then she swallowed thickly. “You hurt me,” she said in a low voice that was scratchy, rough with too much emotion.

Waverly flinched. “I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“You _really_ hurt me.” There was no accusation in her voice, not really—Nicole would never accuse her of anything. She was simply stating a fact: she was in agony, and Waverly had caused it.

Waverly looked as if she were trying to fold in on herself, trying to occupy as little space as possible, if Nicole was about to tell her to leave. She would go, of course. It was all up to Nicole, now. Nicole was the god, here. She was the decider of their fate.

She tried to speak, but her voice cracked, failed. She took a breath, then tried again. “I… I’ll go, if you want—”

It was like all of nature had its breath stolen at once, as Nicole stepped out onto the porch, catching her wrists light as air and pulling her close, until their bodies pressed flush against one another. Waverly stopped, frozen, stricken silent as Nicole moved like a wonder, tipping her chin up with a crooked finger, searching her eyes for—for hesitation, maybe, or a hint of a lie. But all she found was a dim flicker of hope somewhere deep inside hazel eyes. She pulled Waverly even closer, one arm wrapping around her waist and the other hand cradling her face, shivering at Waverly’s icy skin.

She didn’t even care that the freezing rainwater had soaked her clothes through in seconds, or that as she tipped Waverly’s head back and leaned down until their noses brushed together lightly, the water fell in rivulets down her spine. She shivered, shaking her head. “Don’t go,” she breathed, not caring how desperate she sounded, or how sweetly she sighed to simply be this close to Waverly again, feeling her skin, feeling her heartbeat through the paper-thin fabric of their soaked shirts. “Please don’t go.”

Waverly laughed incredulously, warming her hands up Nicole’s arms. “Never,” she promised, and there must have been someone handing out miracles right then, because Nicole believed her.

“I love you,” she said like a prayer to the gods.

Waverly’s hands slid around her neck, fingers twisting into dripping tendrils of hair slowly, uncertain, as if she was waiting to see if Nicole would pull away, if this was too much, too soon. “I love you, too,”

Slowly, Nicole smiled, dimples pressing deep into her cheeks. “You’re going to be the death of me, I can feel it.”

Waverly shook her head stubbornly. “No. I will never hurt you ever again. I promise.”

All of nature quieted at once, finally contented, finally at peace once more, as Nicole kissed her softly. The universe heaved a collective sigh of relief as Waverly did, melting into Nicole’s arms, finally— _finally_ —home.

“I love you,” she mumbled distractedly, pushing Nicole backward into the apartment.

Nicole kicked the door closed behind them, all at once kissing more harshly, more fervently, answering in kind. “I love you,” she said as she lifted Waverly, Waverly’s legs wrapping around her waist automatically. Hands fumbled with the buttons of her shirt for only a moment before Waverly lost all patience, ripping it open and peeling it off her freezing skin, leaving it hanging half off her shoulders as she kissed down the column of her throat in a fervour. She barely even paused as they crashed into the couch, Nicole between her legs and moving fast, desperate, teeth scraping over her racing pulse and hips rolling like the thunder outside.

And for just a second, she forgot herself. She forgot she was a god—inhuman, immortal, and oh, so powerful, as her skirt rode up obscenely high, bunching around her waist in a very decidedly _un_ godly manner. She forgot about the difference between them: that one day Nicole would die, and Waverly would go on without her, that Waverly could crumple mountains beneath her fingertips and Nicole sometimes couldn’t even get the cowlick out of her hair, that Waverly could burn her up in the heat of a dying star by accident, just with the blink of an eye. All that mattered was that Nicole was whispering “ _I love you_ ,” in her ear and she _meant_ it. Here, there were no gods at all; no humans, no divide between Heaven and Earth. Here, all they had to be was in love.

She flipped them, straddling Nicole’s hips as the godly thing inside her uncoiled dangerous, recklessly in love and emboldened by Nicole loving her in return. There really was a lot to be said for the power that lay within being loved in return. Without meaning to, she dropped little miracles down the skin of Nicole’s stomach in the form of hot kisses that spread heat across Nicole’s entire body.

Warmth radiated in waves, following the ebb and flow of Waverly’s lips trailing back up to her own, so distracting she didn’t even notice the skin on her arm knitting itself back together, where it had been cut by the shattering picture. Waverly ran her hands through fiery hair, and as she did the water dried from it, evaporating into thin air and leaving her hair clean and dry (if still a little messy, mostly due to the goddess scraping her nails luxuriously against Nicole’s scalp until she moaned). Miracle upon miracle as they kissed until they were both dry and warm, and Nicole was left staring at her in awe, eyes glassy and cheeks flushed.

“Baby?” She said, voice thick, lethargic and confused. “You’re… you’re glowing…”

Waverly would have cooed at that, would have curled in closer and said that she was glowing, too, had she not noticed the way the light reflected off her fiery hair, making it look like it was spun gold and copper, glittering in the light of a supernova.

Or, you know, in the light of the glowing goddess straddling her waist.

She blushed, pulling the godly thing inside her back, coiling it up tighter, fastening it down so that the glowing faded and she returned to normal. “Sorry,” she muttered, blushing bright red and pulling away automatically. Nicole reached for her just as reflexively, pulling her back and kissing her deep.

“I love you,” she whispered against swollen lips, not willing to let her go just yet. She had only just gotten Waverly back. “Whatever… whatever this is, however you’re doing it, I love you.”

It was almost too much for Waverly—she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to be forgiven so easily, so readily. She didn’t deserve Nicole promising her the world. She didn’t deserve _Nicole_ , but she supposed Nicole had already made her choice. For some reason, she had chosen Waverly, and who was Waverly to argue with that?

She bit her lip thoughtfully. “It… it might just be better if I show you. Do you trust me?”

Nicole answered without hesitation. “With my life.”

Waverly licked her lips, flexed her fingers at the base of Nicole’s neck, and she could hear the roar of supernovae in her ears as she spoke; the crash of atoms colliding and the heartbeat of all the universe. “Then close your eyes, love,” she breathed, pulling Nicole in for a searing kiss that could have inspired a thousand years of poetry, had either of them been anything close to a poet.

She gathered the memories in her mind, wrapped them up tight with warmth, with hope, with all the love she had within her, so that they might meet Nicole well. She pressed a hand flat against Nicole’s chest, just above the thundering heart there—it was so fragile and weak and yet so strong in so many ways Waverly had only just begun to know.

Palm above that heart, Waverly braced them both, holding Nicole flush against her and so tight, as if she were going anywhere, and she _pushed_.

Memories exploded into Nicole’s mind like a dam breaking, but the water showering over her wasn’t her own—they weren’t her own memories. They felt different; older, harsher, radiating at the edges with so much power that it made her heart stutter, jolt, stop and jump for just a moment, and that if Waverly hadn’t been there holding her through it, she would have blown away as dust in the wind.

‘ _Stay with me, love_ ,’ she heard Waverly echoing in her mind.

And then they saw the past, together.

A stormy night, and a single mother drove down an icy backroad, trying not to let her son in the backseat hear her sobs muffled into her hand. He didn’t know his father was gone, yet. Disappeared with only a note, because he had decided that being a father ‘ _just wasn’t for him_ ’. Selfish asshole. And yet she still cried for him. Maybe she was a selfish asshole, too.

So caught up in her own storming thoughts, she didn’t even notice the patch of ice. She hit it dead on, her car spinning out in seconds. A silent screech of tires gripping uselessly on snowy asphalt, as the woman tried uselessly to right the car that was careening toward the guardrail.

Nicole watched on in horror, heart clenched as she wanted to run out, to try to stop the car herself, to do _anything_ , but she was stuck in the snowbank, just beyond the road. Waverly, though—Waverly just stood calmly beside her. She raised her chin, regal and suddenly so full of power Nicole had never known existed, that Nicole could hardly look at her.

The car stopped—turned back the wrong way on the road and mere feet from the rail—but stopped, nonetheless. The woman sat in her seat a moment, white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and refusing to let out a breath lest this be just a joke, just the moment frozen before she died.

She flung herself into the back, gathering her son up into her arms as they both cried, and she shook—with fear, with relief, with so much terror that she had almost lost her child.

But they lived, and they would be okay.

Darkness, and then they were in a trench, muck up to their knees and the rank stench of rotting flesh cloying in Nicole’s nose, curling around her stomach and making her gag. She stood frozen, terrified, listening to the sound of gunfire and grenades and death jackhammering through her mind like that’s all there was, and she hadn’t ever been able to imagine that war would be quite like _this_.

But Waverly wandered, an angel in the mud, looking like the last good thing that existed at the end of the world. She walked along the line of men— _boys—_ pressed against the trench wall, bloody and panting and wanting to go home. One by one, Nicole watched as she brushed their shoulders, or the backs of their hands as they clutched rifles against their chests like those triggers were the only things they knew for certain anymore. One by one, they stood just a little straighter as she passed them, held their guns aloft with more purpose than the moment before, though afterward none of them would be able to explain why. They would all say the same thing: they simply remembered that there was still hope of making it out alive.

“I’m not fucking dying today,” the Captain said to his battalion, peeking his head up over the edge of the trench, mapping a route in his mind. “I said I’d get home and marry my girl, and I ain’t gonna be the one to let her down.”

Men all down the line braced themselves, preparing for one last strike, to push the enemy back. They had to _fight_. There wasn’t anyone else to fight for them.

Darkness swallowed Nicole up just before they pushed up over the trench wall. Yet somehow, she knew the Captain had had a summer wedding, three days after he got off the boat from France.

They stood in a room now: a bedroom, with bubbly pink walls and a small empty bed, the frilled blue duvet screwed up and tossed on the floor. A child curled up beneath the bed, crying softly into the stuffed dragon her uncle had won her at a carnival last year. She begged it silently to protect her from the shouts and the bangs coming from downstairs.

Nicole stood silent, listening to screams for a moment, the _crash_ of breaking plates, the _crack_ of something on the stairs, and suddenly the shadows cast by the nightlight in the wall seemed so much larger, so much darker and more menacing, when she realized what they were.

Carefully, without a word, Waverly crouched down on her knees beside the bed and reached a hand out beneath it. The child shook with sobs too heavy for her tiny body and slipped her hand into Waverly’s, holding it as tightly as she could, though it didn’t seem like she could even perceive the two of them in her room. Waverly pulled her out carefully, slowly, and lifted her up into her arms. The child couldn’t have been older than four, still not yet old enough to even truly understand what she was hearing downstairs. All she seemed to know was that Momma was getting hurt and Daddy wasn’t going to stop tonight. He usually stopped, but this time he wasn’t.

She wrapped her skinny arms around Waverly’s neck, burying her face in honey brown hair that she didn’t even know existed—in her mind, she stood by herself in her room, tiny palms sweating but there was something in her telling her that she would be okay. Outside of her mind, a goddess held her close, whispered soft words of reassurance in her ear as they left the bedroom. She muted their footsteps on the hardwood flooring, so that her father wouldn’t hear and turn his fists on his daughter instead. He did that sometimes, too; Nicole could feel it as if she had been the one beaten. She felt sick, livid, hot tears prickling the corners of her eyes as she fought back the shaking of her fists.

Waverly carried the girl into the other room down the hall, to the phone beside the bed, and sat with the girl in her lap as the girl called the police and told them that her Daddy was drunk, and she thought he might be trying to kill her Momma. They stayed with her until the officers came, Waverly gently stroking her hair, singing a quiet lullaby that only sounded like the wind in the girl’s mind, but it filled her with hope all the same.

Again and again and again, the scene changed over and over and over, and Nicole watched as Waverly helped countless people all across the universe, across time and space, find hope again.

A girl in Macedonia who yearned to study mathematics rather than accept the life of servitude and childrearing she was given. A man in the 1930’s, fighting to stay calm, to not react, not give them what they want as they shoot the man he loved right in front of his eyes, because they said that people like him didn’t deserve happiness. A peasant in the Dark Ages, watching a mad king rule with blood and greed, at a loss for how they would survive tyranny this time. A million different moments filled Nicole’s mind, bright and strong—so strong, and they felt so real she would swear up and down they really stood in the factory at the turn of the 20th century, urging a child worker not to lose faith that he would be free to have a childhood soon enough.

They flashed past her eyes all at once and left her gasping, grasping tight at Waverly in her lap, trying to hang on as long as she could, as the memories of a goddess threatened to rip her atoms apart.

Dimly, somewhere in the rush of feeling, she heard Waverly calling to her, combing her hair with delicate fingers and kissing her cheeks, beckoning her home, away from the impossible light.

She hesitated, straying toward the light of the memories that threatened to burn her up from the inside out. ‘ _But it’s so beautiful…_ ’

‘ _Come back, darling,_ ’ Waverly whispered in the distance, and instinctively, she turned toward it, searching for home, an electron falling inevitably back to its ground state. ‘ _Come back to me. I won’t lose you again._ ’

Nicole blinked, the light slowly fading from her mind, receding back into shadows that became her living room, her desk, her mantle. It finally began to settle, coalescing into the angel still sitting in her lap, urging her back from the edge of danger with soft lips against her cheeks and temples, fingers curling in her hair, promises whispered in her ears.

“Wave _…_ ” She croaked, throat dry and sweat matting her hair and making her shirt cling to the small of her back. She took deep, ragged breaths, feeling a flush overtake her face and chest as if she were running a fever. She blinked again dumbly, her vision still blurry and shaking, as if the floor had turned as turbulent as water, until she was looking into the eyes of a goddess with perfect clarity. “You… _hope_ …”

Waverly chuckled wetly, tears staining her cheeks as she smoothed Nicole’s hair and kissed her furrowed brow. “In a manner of speaking,” she said in a soft voice that still sounded foreign in Nicole’s ears, but nearer to normal now.

Nicole gaped, face slack, still trying to connect one thought to another, still not able to wrap a full string of words around what she held in her arms. “You save people.”

“I do,”

“You’re a… goddess?”

Waverly shrugged, twisting the baby hairs at the back of Nicole’s neck between her fingers. “That’s what you humans decided to call me, so I suppose that’s what I am.”

Nicole opened her mouth to speak again, then clipped it shut with a _click_ of her teeth as emotion finally began to return to her face, and she was stricken by a single jarring thought. “Holy _shit_ , I had sex with a goddess.”

Sometimes it’s just easier to focus on the smaller things right in front of you, rather than the earth-shattering things happening all around.

Waverly sputtered, bright laughter bubbling up in her throat as she pulled Nicole close and kissed her with all the love that shined within her right then. “If that’s what you want to take away from this, then yeah, you kinda did.”

“A goddess is sitting in my lap.”

“She’s also kissing your neck.”

“Oh my God, a goddess gave me a hickey,” she gasped, though still curving her neck back to give Waverly more access to the column of her throat. (She was having an arguably extreme theistic awakening at the moment, but she was only human after all). “Wait, is it offensive to say, ‘ _oh my God_ ’? Is that your dad? Oh shit, when I say, ‘ _oh my God_ ’ in bed, am I really calling out for your dad?”

Waverly broke her path back up to Nicole’s lips, dissolving into laughter that really wasn’t helped by the completely serious and concerned expression Nicole wore right then. It took a long moment to get her giggles in order. “No, baby, no, it’s not offensive, and no, there’s no God, capital-G, who’s my dad. We don’t even have parents, my siblings and me. We just… are.”

Nicole thought that over a moment before nodding once, accepting it as well as she could.

Which, really, was just about as expected—better, even, then one might expect for a woman who had spent her entire life practically ambivalent to all theistic philosophy around her and simply settled for believing in what she could see right in front of her, and what she knew could be proven by science and mathematics. Even if she couldn’t prove any of it herself; she failed physics twice in high school before switching into biology for her science credit. She still believed in those who _could_ prove that gravity made you fall down.

So instead of entertaining the maelstrom of static beginning to buzz in her mind as questions filed up one after the other, she simply sighed and rested their foreheads together, choosing instead to focus on the brightest thought in her mind. She breathed in deep the smell of Waverly’s perfume— (Did she wear perfume? Do gods even need to wear perfume or can they just… naturally smell like wildflowers?)—and let her heavy eyes fall shut in peace.

As stated previously, it’s easier to accept the things right in front of you, and it was the easiest thing in the world for her to accept that Waverly was a miracle from Heaven above.

She felt a tear sting the corner of her eye as Waverly threaded fingers through her hair, cradling her close and so, so softly. She couldn’t help but think of the power she had seen in Waverly—the immense, world-crushing power. Waverly could end the universe with the blink of an eye, and yet she held Nicole as if there was nothing in all the world more precious than her. “Thank you,” she croaked, voice thick, heavy with understanding on a cosmic scale. They existed— _all_ of this, all the world, all of humanity—because Waverly had chosen to be kind with her power, rather than cruel.

Waverly pulled back a fraction, confused frown pulling at her face. She wiped the ghost of the tear from Nicole’s face with a thumb, almost like an afterthought. “For what?” She asked.

“For… _everything_ ,” Nicole replied in earnest. “For, quite literally, _everything_. For giving us—humanity, I guess. A chance to grow. For keeping us safe for so long. For saving us, when we were about to wipe ourselves out. For everything you just showed me, and so much more. You…” She trailed off in abstract thought, shaking her head in quiet disbelief of just _how much_ was owed to the woman before her. “You gave us everything, and we never even gave you anything in return.”

At that, Waverly shook her head, calling Nicole’s eyes back to hers. “That’s not true, you know,” she said. “Humanity gave me you.”

Nicole blushed, smiling small and private, self-consciousness making her duck her head in embarrassment. “I don’t know if I’m much of a prize, on behalf of _all_ the universe.”

Waverly shook her head again in disagreement, something like pain twisting her in gut at the thought that this woman before her didn’t think she was worth much at all. She tilted Nicole’s chin back up with the crook of a finger, so that their lips just _nearly_ touched. “Nicole Haught,” she whispered, letting their lips brush _just_ lightly, grinning wicked at the way Nicole’s eyes fluttered shut and shivers danced up and down her spine in response. “You are so much more than I could have ever dreamt the universe could create, and I am forever indebted to it because you love me, too.”

Nicole stilled, a slow smile growing across her face until she was practically glowing, shining bright and true, dimples pressing deep into her cheeks and without a hint of hesitation in her sparkling eyes.

And suddenly Waverly was lifted, Nicole holding her tight beneath her thighs. She laughed and wrapped her legs around Nicole’s waist, kissing up the column of her throat as glass flew around them like snowflakes, reassembling into the picture on the mantle. Miracles poured out of her as Nicole walked them into the bedroom and pressed her flat on the bed, pressing the full length of her body on top and kissing her with more love than even she knew existed. She laughed, joy spilling out of her in waves that cascaded out, around the world, and the world began to mend itself.

Not that either of them cared to notice the quelling storm outside, or the placating rebellions, or the armies edging back from the brink of world war.

No, noticing anything but each other with imply that they _cared_ about anything other than each other, right then.

Right then, hope was as selfish as could be, stealing every kiss, saving it in her mind for the rest of time.

“You seem to have accepted all that pretty quick,” she noted with a teasing tone as Nicole kissed down her jaw, finding the spot beneath her ear that made her groan and arch up by reflex.

Nicole stilled just a moment, raising her head with a wicked glint in her eye, grinning devilishly with kiss-swollen lips. “Well, I’ve got to thank you on behalf of all of humanity, haven’t I? And that’s probably going to take me a _while_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, _I know_ , "Bean, where have you been?? No updates for two whole weeks!! We were dying!!" I was dying, too, friends! Midterms were--and still are--killing me, but I finally got an hour where I could sit down and update. I apologize for the delay, but school does come first. I wasn't allowed to have any fun at all in the past two weeks. 
> 
> And yes, if you're wondering, that god of dramatic irony cackling to herself in the dark was, in fact, me inserting myself into the story as I wrote it. What's a 4th wall? Never heard of it. 
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr, [@astrophysical-bean](http://astrophysical-bean.tumblr.com/)! Ask me questions, please, my messages and my askbox are always open! I get so lonely sometimes. Ask me about QCD Phase Transition, it's really cool and really important in cosmological history!!! 
> 
> If this chapter must serve any purpose at all, let its purpose be to teach you this: That girl you like, who makes you feel so much calm in this endless, ceaselessly exploding, expanding, turning absurdist universe? Tell her how you feel. Tell her now. 
> 
> \--Bean

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to the oddest and most theologically intensive AU I've thought up, to date. I've been working on this for the past 6 months or so, and I am _so_ excited to finally be able to share it with y'all, I really hope you like it. It's basically a huge mashup of American Gods, Small Gods/the Discworld series, and my cosmology notes from last semester (in fact, all the chapter titles will be named after major events in the cosmological timeline). 
> 
> I've already got 4/6 chapters written up, and the rest is planned, so I'm thinking of updating this every week on Friday mornings. 
> 
> Anyway, come talk to me on Tumblr [@astrophysical-bean](http://astrophysical-bean.tumblr.com/), let me know what you think! Ask me about the different cosmological eras! Please ask me about cosmology. Make me feel like my astrophysics degree was worth it. I can do your physics and math homework for you. 
> 
> \--Bean


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